Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Puffer's Pond Tweak

Amherst Town Meeting will vote a creative funding deal for repairs at arguably the town's #1 recreation attraction, Puffer's Pond.

Last spring Town Meeting overwhelmingly approved $15,000 to repair the fencing around the dam to keep pesky youth (and photographers) from climbing the rocks.

Since that article passed Conservation staff subitted to the state a grant proposal for $36,000 for additional repairs to the trails and beach area. The grant requires a 50% match, so the town will use the original $15,000 already appropriated along with $3,000 in private donations to cover the match.

Damn people keep climbing up onto the dam

Article 8 calls for authorization of the full grant amount ($36,000) and applies the $18,000 in available funds towards that amount to cover the matching grant requirement.

If the state approves the $36,000 grant request, thereby giving us an additional $18,000 to work with, it has to be expended before June 30, 2014. If the state turns down the application, Amherst will simply use the original $15,000 to repair/install fencing.

I have often wondered about the leaks in the dam, and the extent to which they might compromise the dam over time. I'm neither an engineer nor an experts on dams but has someone who is both thoroughly examined that structure in the past decade?

As I understand it, it was built a century or more ago for long-gone mills and I remember a good chunk of the City of Tauton having to be evacuated a while back when some long-overlooked dam there started to let go.

No offense to Gerald Mooning, I don't believe he is a dam expert - and has there been someone who actually is one taken a look at it anytime this century? When was the last time someone did a detailed examination of it -- maybe have a SCUBA diver look at the inside of it?

(I'll bet that you likely could get Homeland Security money to pay for it -- and it'd be a h*ll of a lot better investment than buying the APD another tank...)

And it would be one thing to have the bridge collapse and kill a few people -- were that dam to suddenly let go in the middle of the night, possibly in the midst of the torrential downpour of a thunderstorm, I fear the mortality would be significantly higher.